The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View, AP* Edition (King), 3rd Edition

Chapter 9: Human Development

Key Terms


development  The pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs throughout life, involving both growth and decline.
nature  An individual's biological inheritance, especially his or her genes.
nurture  An individual's environmental and social experiences.
resilience  A person's ability to recover from or adapt to difficult times.
preferential looking  A research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at.
assimilation  An individual's incorporation of new information into existing knowledge.
accommodation  An individual's adjustment of his or her schemas to new information.
sensorimotor stage  Piaget's first stage of cognitive development, lasting from birth to about 2 years of age, during which infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with motor (physical) actions.
preoperational stage  Piaget's second stage of cognitive development, lasting from about 2 to 7 years of age, during which thought is more symbolic than sensorimotor thought.
concrete operational stage  Piaget's third stage of cognitive development, lasting from about 7 to 11 years of age, during which the individual uses operations and replaces intuitive reasoning with logical reasoning in concrete situations.
formal operational stage  Piaget's fourth stage of cognitive development, which begins at 11 to 15 years of age and continues through the adult years; it features thinking about things that are not concrete, making predictions, and using logic to come up with hypotheses about the future.
temperament  An individual's behavioral style and characteristic way of responding.
infant attachment  The close emotional bond between an infant and its caregiver.
secure attachment  The ways that infants use their caregiver, usually their mother, as a secure base from which to explore the environment.
authoritarian parenting  A restrictive, punitive style in which the parent exhorts the child to follow the parent's directions and to value hard work and effort.
authoritative parenting  A parenting style that encourages the child to be independent but that still places limits and controls on behavior.
neglectful parenting  A parenting style characterized by a lack of parental involvement in the child's life.
permissive parenting  A parenting style characterized by the placement of few limits on the child's behavior.
prosocial behavior  Behavior that is intended to benefit other people.
puberty  A period of rapid skeletal and sexual maturation that occurs mainly in early adolescence.
androgens  The main class of male sex hormones.
estrogens  The main class of female sex hormones.
identity versus identity confusion  Erikson's fifth psychological stage, in which adolescents face the challenges of finding out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.
emerging adulthood  The transitional period from adolescence to adulthood, spanning approximately 18 to 25 years of age.
wisdom  Expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life.
King: The Science of Psychology, 3rd Edition
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